MW Verizon names a PayPal veteran its next CEO. Can that help its lagging stock?

By Emily Bary

Verizon once was widely viewed as having the best wireless network, but that's now up in the air. New CEO Dan Schulman sees 'a clear opportunity to redefine our trajectory.'

Dan Schulman, formerly the CEO of PayPal, is taking the helm at Verizon after years of underperformance in its stock.

Verizon Communications Inc. just made a surprise change at chief executive. Can it help turn around Verizon's underperforming stock?

The telecommunications company named Dan Schulman, the former CEO of PayPal (PYPL), to be its next leader. He's replacing Hans Vestberg, who served as Verizon's CEO since 2018, with the change effective immediately. Schulman is no stranger to Verizon $(VZ)$, having been a lead independent director on the company's board since 2018.

Shares of Verizon are up fractionally in premarket action Monday.

In a release, Verizon cheered Schulman's "unique combination of financial and operational leadership experience with large public companies, and deep expertise in the telecommunications, technology and financial sectors."

While he's best known for occupying the top spot at PayPal from 2014 to 2023, Schulman does have telecommunications experience on his résumé, as he previously led the consumer division at AT&T Inc. $(T)$ and was CEO at Virgin Mobile.

He assumes the top spot at Verizon at a time when the company has been struggling to maintain its competitive position in the industry. Verizon was once seen as having the best network, and that resonated with customers. But as rivals AT&T and T-Mobile US Inc. $(TMUS)$ have stepped up their network investments and embraced the 5G era, the market has gotten more competitive.

"It's much harder to say what Verizon's strategy is today," MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said in a note to clients after the company's last earnings report. "Verizon certainly wouldn't concede that their network is no longer 'the best,' but most observers in wireless, now including network tester Ookla, give that title to T-Mobile."

Verizon shares are down 26% over the past five years, as the S&P 500 SPX has risen 93%, and they're trading at a notable discount to AT&T shares. Under Vestberg's tenure, the stock lost about 16% as the S&P 500 rose 139%. AT&T's stock has lagged the broad market as well over that span, but it's outperformed Verizon's by showing a 12% gain.

"We have a clear opportunity to redefine our trajectory, by growing our market share across all segments of the market, while delivering meaningful growth in our key financial metrics," Schulman said in a release. "We are going to maximize our value propositions, reduce our cost to serve, and optimize our capital allocation to delight our customers and deliver sustainable long-term growth for our shareholders."

Schulman built PayPal into a powerhouse following the company's 2015 separation from eBay Inc. $(EBAY)$ At one point during the pandemic, the company was actually worth more than Mastercard Inc. $(MA)$ - a sign of PayPal's perceived might in the world of payments and e-commerce.

But PayPal fell out of favor with investors toward the end of Schulman's run at PayPal, with some critiquing the company's slower pace of innovation and its struggles to keep pace as Apple Pay and other online payment types became more prevalent.

-Emily Bary

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October 06, 2025 09:25 ET (13:25 GMT)

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